The UN climate chief warned Friday that to prevent Earth from overheating, nations must add fewer loopholes to climate agreements and invest billions of dollars in financial aid for impoverished nations.
In an unusually harsh presentation at a university in Baku, Azerbaijan, the host city of future international climate discussions later this year
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell termed prior accomplishments insufficient. He added things may “quickly fizzle away into more empty promises” without enough money.
Stiell said money—$2.4 trillion a year—is key. This is how much a UN High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance estimates developing nations—excluding China—need to invest in renewable energy instead of dirtier fossil fuels and adapt to and recover from climate change harms like floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves.
Richer governments have promised poor nations less than 5% of that sum in climate finance aid, and they rarely deliver
“It’s already blazingly obvious that finance is the make-or-break factor in the world’s climate fight,” Stiell added. “We need climate finance torrents, not trickles.”
The 2024 Baku discussions and the 2025 Brazil summit, when nations must make fresh and bolder promises to decrease emissions of all heat-trapping gases, are vital for addressing climate change, according to UN climate authorities. Officials stated money is the great facilitator of action.
Business-as-usual in all aspects of the world's climate fight has passed,” Stiell added. After briefly applauding last year's climate accord that acknowledged fossil fuels cause warming and the world needed to “transition away” from them, Stiell voiced a rare but veiled critique.
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